a song of rain

The first time he wakes, he is face-down on a beach; small waves are rolling in and out across his limp body and in front of his eyes, and the froth left behind looks soft and strangely comforting, he thinks as he slips back into unconsciousness.

The second time, his nerves focus before his eyes do. Whatever he’s lying on is comfortable and significantly less grainy than sand, so he deduces that he’s been moved elsewhere. He doesn’t know his name, where he’s from, or why he’s in so much pain, but he does know that he’s likely alive. The feeling of something sliding across his face causes his eyes to open, and all he can see once again is soft seafoam. Strands of pale green hair hang in front of him, and suddenly he’s no longer sure he hasn’t died, because the woman rubbing a salve into the slash on his chest must surely be an angel. He watches her tend to his wound, keeping as still as possible so as not to disturb her, but he can’t help his smile when she knocks over the box of bandages and nearly falls off her stool picking it up.

She sees his smile out of the corner of her eye and gasps before falling off the stool completely. His soft laugh makes her smile in return, and she sits back down, beaming at him. “You’re awake! Oh, that’s good, I was starting to get really worried you wouldn’t. I found you washed up on the shore almost a week ago.”

Ah, he thinks, that would explain the beach, then. He attempts to sit up, but doesn’t move more than half an inch before the woman puts her hands on his shoulders and gently pushes him back down.

“Uh-uh, no moving for you, mister,” she puts on the sternest look she can muster, which he thinks is more of an cute pout than anything, and scolds him. “Your wound is still open, and I don’t think either of us want you stuck in this bed for an extra week.”

From: Lucy Message: you’re coming right???

She shot back a quick confirmation and grabbed her purse, dropping the phone inside one of the pockets. A rough semester had left Juvia in a constant bad mood, and because of that she’d taken to spending her evenings holed up in her room alone, but Lucy had talked her into meeting her and Cana at a bar downtown for a few drinks. Locking her door behind her, she jogged down the steps and walked down to the corner to catch a taxi.

The rain fell hard against the pavement, splashing onto her shoulders and boots and sending a chill through her veins. She shoved her hands farther into her coat pockets and sighed again. Car after car passed by, spraying raindrops onto the sidewalk, but not one of them was a taxi. Through the gentle roar of the heavy rain, she almost missed the sound of footsteps approaching her. She looked up to see a dark-haired man standing next to her, looking out at the street and holding an umbrella over his head.

“It’s so hard to get a cab this late,” he mumbled, just loud enough for her to hear, and she nodded in agreement. He shifted his umbrella to his other hand, the one closer to her. “You can stand under this too, you know.”

She reluctantly stepped to the side, just enough to get out of the rain. “Thank you, um…”

“I’m Gray.”

“Thank you, Gray.” She blushed a bit; standing closer to him allowed her to see his face better, and she had decided he was gorgeous. “Oh, aren’t you cold? You don’t have a coat on.”

He shrugged. “The cold doesn’t really bother me much. You know my name now, so what’s yours?”

“Juvia.”

“Where are you headed, Juvia?” He asked, looking down at her.

Juvia nervously adjusted her scarf and avoided his eyes. “Just downtown. Juvia is meeting some friends there.”

He hummed approvingly. “So am I. Well, going downtown, anyway. I’m not meeting your friends or anything.”

She giggled and a burst of confidence hit her. “Maybe we should share a ride.”

He smiled before scoffing sarcastically. “If one ever comes by.”

The two of them stood in silence for a while. She found it more comfortable than awkward, though. After a few minutes, the distinct yellow of a taxi cab came into view, and Gray stuck his free arm out to catch the driver’s attention. The cab stopped, and Gray opened the door, motioning for her to go in first. Juvia slid over to the far seat as Gray closed his umbrella and got in beside her. “The Starbucks downtown, please,” he said to the driver, who nodded and pulled back into traffic.

There wasn’t much space in the taxi, and they were close enough for their arms to touch. She fidgeted with the edge of her coat, trying not to make her nervousness obvious. “So, w-what are you going downtown for?” she asked, still not looking at him.

“A friend of mine had some kind of emergency with another friend, so I’m going to go watch his cat for a while,” Gray said. “He gets pretty antsy being by himself.”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh, what kind of cat is he?” In her excitement, she forgot about avoiding eye contact and turned slightly to face him.

“Natsu says he’s a Russian blue, but he meows so much I’d say he’s a Siamese.”

Juvia laughed. “Juvia’s roommate has a cat, too. He looks like a tiny panther, but he doesn’t meow too much. He’s very sweet.”

Gray smiled at her and shifted his hand to brush against hers. She froze for a moment, but didn’t move her hand. Her blush deepened, and his cheeks started to turn pink in response. He cleared his throat and looked out the window. “So, Juvia, what do you do for a living?”

“College,” she said. “Juvia is studying marine biology.”

“Cool.” He leaned his arm against the window and turned his head back towards her. “I’m an art major. Mostly sculpting, but some life drawing.”

“Juvia thought you would have been the model, not the artist,” she giggled a bit as she spoke, and his face flushed.

“I’ve never given that much thought.”

Her voice softened and she smiled warmly at him. “Juvia thinks you would be good at it.”

They fell into another short, easy silence, faces still red and hands still touching. This feels nice, Juvia thought, still smiling to herself.

“I think we’re almost there,” Gray said, and Juvia’s heart sank. They had just met, but she wasn’t sure she was ready for their time together to end. He slid his hand over hers and their fingers slipped in between each other, and she squeezed gently as the taxi pulled up to the curb.

Gray sighed and pushed the door open, slowly untangling his hand from hers. She followed him out of the car and straightened her coat. Her phone vibrated in her purse, and she fished it out to respond to whatever message Lucy had sent her, but it slipped out of her hand as she unlocked it. Before she could react, Gray had caught it, but he didn’t give it back to her right away.

“What are you doing?” She asked, trying to grab her phone back.

He smirked and held it out of her reach. “Giving you my number. You should call me if you ever need someone to ride with again.”

“Oh.” Her face burned as she waited for him to finish typing. After a few seconds, he handed it back to her with a smile. “There,” he said, turning around and waving as he began to walk away. “I’ll see you.”

Gray sat on the ground and stared at the sky through the rubble of the village, trying desperately to let out the sorrow he felt, but he couldn’t cry. Maybe it was her blood running through his body, carrying her will for him to live happily, or maybe it was the shock, but no matter how much he screamed and punched the ground, tears refused to fall from his eyes. He could feel the traces of her in his veins, but he wanted her in his arms.

Why? Why did she have to save me? Why couldn’t she let me save her? He slammed his fist down, splattering mud on his legs. What did I do to deserve her? And to deserve this? Visions flashed behind his eyes of her, bloodied and broken but smiling so warmly at him, and a strangled cry tore from his throat.

“Gray?” A familiar voice rang through the night. “Is that you?”

He looked up as three shadows peeked out from around the corner. “Erza?”

The redhead rushed over and knelt down at his side, followed closely by Wendy and Carla. “Are you alright? What happened?”

“Juvia… she… she’s…”

“What happened, Gray? Where’s Juvia?” Erza put her hands on his shoulders and shook him gently until he met her eyes. It didn’t take long for her to read the hopelessness on his face. “...Where is she now?”

Gray turned his head to look behind him. On a couch in the corner of the half-destroyed house lay Juvia’s body, covered in a torn jacket and a thin coating of ice. From across the room, it looked as though she could have been sleeping. He had curled her on her side and frozen her body in a last-ditch effort to save at least some part of her, but he couldn’t bear to leave her lying in the middle of the battlefield for the enemy to find.

Wendy made her way over to the couch and pulled back the jacket to reveal the gaping wound in Juvia’s stomach. She gasped, looking back at Gray’s matching gash. “How did this happen?”

“Invel, he…” Gray took a deep breath to steady himself. “He wanted us to kill each other. But I couldn’t… I couldn’t hurt her, I couldn’t, I tried to end it myself, but so did she, and she… she saved me. She saved me, but I couldn’t save her. I failed…”

Erza rubbed a hand along his back. “Gray, you don’t need to blame yourself. You know how selfless Juvia is, and how much she loves you. I have no doubt you did everything you could for her.”

“I should‘ve done more. I should’ve been stronger.” He balled his fists against his knees and turned away from Erza. “And Invel got away, I couldn’t even avenge her.”

“Wait!” Wendy called from across the room. “There’s something…”

Carla patted Gray’s shoulder and flew over to the dragonslayer. “What is it, child?”

“I think I feel something!” She pressed both hands against the ice on Juvia’s chest and twisted her mouth in concentration for a moment before gasping in delight. “Yeah! It’s really slow and faint, but I’m pretty sure her heart’s still beating! I’m not sure if there’s much I can do right now, but we might still be able to help her!”

Gray’s eyes widened and something like hope began to bloom in his chest. She’s… alive? He stood up and stumbled his way over to Wendy, kneeling down next to her at Juvia’s side.

“Could you melt a little of the ice here? I might be able to close up the wound a little,” Wendy grabbed his hand and placed it on Juvia’s stomach, right above her injury. “Just there, though; I don’t know if it would be a good idea to melt all of it, just in case.”

He nodded slowly, still in a new state of shock, and dissolved a small area of ice, exposing the hole in her side. Wendy went to work immediately, magic flowing through her fingertips and attempting to close the wound. Blood spilled out onto the floor, and the healer sighed.

“She’s losing blood really fast, I don’t know if I can heal her in time,” she whispered, letting Carla wipe the sweat from her forehead. “I’m sorry.”

Gray gasped. “Her blood… she used transfusion magic to save me, she gave me her blood! Is there a way you can give her my blood?” He pulled back the makeshift bandage around his abdomen and showed her his own barely-healed wound.

“That might work, but we probably shouldn’t try to do it all at once. I don’t want you passing out from blood loss or anything.”

“And you know you need to rest,” Carla interjected, crossing her arms at Wendy. “If you wear yourself out too quickly, you won’t be able to do much of anything.”

Wendy sighed again and looked down at Carla. “You’re right. Gray, could you freeze her again for now?”

Over the next twenty hours, Wendy closed Juvia’s wound little by little, each time replacing the blood lost with some of Gray’s. Erza guarded the building and Carla headed off to the guild to inform them of the situation. Gray spent most of his downtime lost in thought, imagining her opening her eyes and fantasizing about all the ways he could make Invel suffer. While Wendy slept, he would rest his hand in Juvia’s frozen one, squeezing it lightly and hoping desperately that soon she would be able to squeeze back.

“There!” Wendy leaned back and clapped her hands triumphantly, beaming at Gray and Erza. Where there had been a hole in Juvia’s side just a day ago, there was now only a fresh scar.

Erza ruffled Wendy’s hair and smiled back at her. “Wonderful job, Wendy! Do you know how long until she wakes up?”

“It might take a while, she was pretty far gone. She should be out of the woods, though! Gray, would you like to do the honours?”

Gray nodded and sighed, the dam holding back his hope breaking and flooding him with relief. He placed both his hands on Juvia’s arm, and ice covering her slowly melted away. Everything was still and silent for a few moments, the three wizards waiting and watching, until they saw the soft, shallow, and unmistakable rise and fall of a tiny breath. He was vaguely aware of Wendy and Erza screaming with joy beside him, but his entire world had narrowed to her face, eyes closed and lips slightly parted, no longer in death, but merely in sleep. His hand reached out to gently brush against her pinkish cheek and she sighed quietly, and that was enough for him. Hot tears finally spilled down his cheeks, dripping onto the couch and the floor. “Juvia…”

“We should let her rest for a while, she’ll need to get her strength back,” Erza said. “Wendy, why don’t we get some air? Gray, try not to wake her yet.”

He nodded, still focused on the blue-haired girl asleep before him and more than content just to know she would be alright.

Gray wasn’t sure when he fell asleep. He was disoriented when he woke to mostly darkness, the only light in the building coming from the full moon overhead. For a moment, he was sure he was still dreaming when he looked up, because he was met with a pair of bright blue eyes, exhausted and yet full of life, smiling back at him.

“Gray-sama…” she whispered, her voice hoarse and strained.

He stared at her, taking in everything. Her eyes, her smile, her skin glowing in the moonlight, and her hand resting in his. She squeezed his hand so softly he barely felt it, but he returned the gesture, wiping the tear streaks from his face and silently thanking every higher power there was for the fact that she was there beside him, warm and breathing and alive.

She reached out slowly to brush his bangs out of his eyes, and her other hand guided his to the underside of her breast so he could feel the beating of her heart and the rise and fall of her breath in her chest.

As he felt the soft, steady pulses beneath his palm, another tear rolled down his cheek and he took a shaky breath. “You’re here. You’re back.”

“Juvia never left,” she smiled up at him, her eyes filled with happy tears. “And Juvia never will.”

Gray let out a half-sob at her words and surged forward to capture her lips in a desperate kiss. He felt her squeak and tense up for a moment before sighing against his mouth and melting against him. His fingers lightly squeezed her side as he deepened the kiss and she rubbed her thumb against the back of his hand. The tears fell freely down his face as he kissed her, the warmth in his heart spreading further through his body with each second.

Eventually, however, the burning in Juvia’s lungs got the better of her and she broke the kiss with a deep breath, propping herself up on her elbow. She blinked twice, looked into Gray’s eyes, and flushed bright red with realisation. “U-um…”

He laughed for the first time in what felt like an eternity. “Juvia,” he whispered, moving both of his hands to the sides of her face, “that was my answer.”

“Wh-what?” Her blush deepened as she stared into his eyes. There was no hint of hesitation or obligation in them, only a warmth she had dreamt of since the day he had taken her rain away.

“I’m so sorry, Juvia. I wasn’t strong enough to protect you. I couldn’t save you,” he sighed, rubbing his thumbs lightly across her cheeks.

She closed her eyes and leaned into one of his hands. “Oh, Gray-sama, you’ve saved Juvia every day since she met you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Juvia was alone until you made the rain stop. No home, no family, no love. Juvia found all those things in Fairy Tail, and in you. You gave Juvia all of her reasons to live, Gray-sama.”

A sob caught in his throat as he listened to her. Unable to speak, he leaned forward and wrapped his arms gently around her, basking in her warmth. She returned the embrace, burying her nose against his neck and whispering sweetly to him. “It’s okay now, Juvia is okay, Juvia is here…”

The two clung to each other for what felt like hours until Juvia yawned and cuddled closed to him. Gray ran a hand through her hair and kissed her temple. “You should get some more sleep. You need it.”

“Mm, so do you.” She let go of him to scoot closer to the back of the couch and patted the now-empty space in front of her. “You look like you’ve barely slept in weeks, Gray-sama.”

He crawled up onto the couch, letting her reattach herself to his side and wrapping an arm around her. Her eyes closed and within moments her breathing slowed and evened out, and he watched her with a small smile.

Lucy pulled at her stiff collar, not entirely thrilled to be back in a ballgown, but curious about Natsu’s plans nonetheless. She smoothed down the front of the deep blue dress and took a deep breath, turning her head to get a better look at her hair in the mirror. It was pulled back into an elegant braided bun that pulled at her scalp in a familiar but unpleasant way. When Natsu had first waved the flier for the job in her face, she took it without a second thought because, as usual, she really needed the money. However, she hadn’t expected she’d be back in a gown and entertaining strangers at an upscale party.

She couldn’t deny that Natsu looked good in his suit, though. The dark grey fabric matched nicely with his signature scarf, which he had tied like a cravat around his neck, and his slicked-back pink hair provided just the right pop of color. It had been his idea in the first place to crash the party rather than confronting the criminal as they were leaving. They would talk their way in under the guises of Duchess Lucina von Hart and Prince Nathan of Salmanda (also his idea) and capture the jewelry thief as the party ended. That way they could have some fun and, as he put it, “get some free fancy grub” while they were at it.

Night had already fallen by the time they arrived at the stately mansion. A thin crowd was filtering in through the main gate, and Lucy and Natsu blended in undetected. With every step, Lucy fought the urge to bolt back to the inn and away from the chandeliers and champagne, but Natsu slipped his hand around her waist to keep himself from getting too far away and she relaxed a bit. Luckily, the butler checking for invitations was distracted with another guest who had forgotten theirs, allowing Natsu’s plan to somehow go off without a hitch.

Once inside the giant ballroom, Lucy took a moment to shake off her anxiety and marvel at the gilded thirty foot ceiling and ridged marble pillars. Natsu made a beeline for the hors d'oeuvres table, and she didn’t notice until he’d returned to her side, pockets and cheeks full of shrimp and spinach puffs.

“You gotta try some of these!” he said, swallowing another puff whole and dragging her back towards the table. “You like spinach, right? ‘Cause if you don’t, they’ve got cheese ones, too.”

Lucy let herself be led away from the entrance, but she wasn’t listening to Natsu. She glanced around the ballroom, searching for their target, but he was nowhere to be found. “Natsu,” she hissed, catching his attention. “Where is he? I don’t see him anywhere.”

He just shrugged. “We’ve got time. The party just started. Loosen up a little!”

As if on cue, a sextet of strings began to play, and Natsu’s eyes lit up. “Hey, Lucy, let’s dance!”

The dance floor was already full of couples, spinning around each other as if they were synchronized. Amidst the group, the two of them were predictably off-tempo and Natsu didn’t even try to disguise the fact that he had no idea what he was doing, but Lucy found herself smiling nonetheless. The tiny voice in the back of her head told her to focus on the job and keep searching the room, but she allowed herself to let go and have some fun. By the end of the song, she and Natsu were both laughing like idiots, drawing unwanted attention to themselves, but she couldn’t find it in her to care. “You know, Natsu, I never thought I’d actually have fun at a party like this.”

Natsu grinned widely at her and opened his mouth to say something, but another butler came up behind them and tapped him on the shoulder. “Excuse me, sir, ma’am, but I don’t believe my colleague or I checked for your invitation.”

“Don’t you know who we are?” Natsu crossed his arms over his chest and put on an overly offended expression. “I don’t think your boss would be very happy to know you’re harassing us.”

“Sir, if you don’t have an invitation, I’m going to have to ask the two of you to leave.”

“Go on, Luce, tell him who we are!” Natsu grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her forward.

She flushed and laughed nervously, rubbing the back of her neck. “We’re… we’re on our way out. Sorry to bother you. Let’s go,” she grabbed him by the sleeve and tried to head for the door, but he stood his ground.

“We’re not leaving yet,” he said. Leaning closer to her, he whispered, “Don’t we still have a job to do?”

“Well, how do you suppose we do it? They figured us out, Natsu. We’ll have to leave and come up with another plan,” she hissed back. She looked back at the butler and saw a small group of guards coming through the doors behind him. “Um, Natsu, we’ve got a little bit of a problem...”

“Sorry, guys, but we’ve gotta go! Great spinach things, by the way!” He grabbed her hand and pulled her quickly through the crowd, slipping behind a wide pillar just outside the doors and holding a finger to her mouth as the guards ran past them down the hallway. The large window behind them was cracked halfway open and he jumped through it, beckoning from the other side for her to do the same. She rolled her eyes and, deciding there really were no other ways out, hiked her skirts up and stepped through. The sky above them illuminated the ground beneath them as they snuck through the garden, Natsu holding back giggles at the thrill of the adventure.

“Shh! Someone’s gonna hear us!” Lucy thwacked him on the shoulder. “Do you want to get caught?”

He threw his head back and laughed, his smile wide and his eyes glistening with joy. She leapt forward to clap a hand over his mouth, but he grabbed it and laced his fingers in hers. “Look,” he whispered, pointing up at the sky with his free hand, “don’t you see the starlight?”

Cana had returned to Magnolia from a long, grueling mission and, deciding she didn’t have the strength to walk all the way to Fairy Hills and spend more time alone, showed up at Lucy’s doorstep at three in the morning. When the door opened, she stumbled over the threshold, falling against the blonde, pajama-clad girl on the other side.

“Oh my gosh, Cana, you look terrible! What happened?” Lucy pushed her up by her arms, scanning her for injuries.

“Calm down, I’m fine. ‘M just tired.”

“Well, you’re also covered in dirt and dried blood!”

“I told you, I’m fine,” Cana groaned. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep for three days, but she let Lucy drag her to the bathroom.

Lucy shoved a large, fluffy towel into Cana’s hands. “Alright, there’s shampoo and shower gel in the shelf in the shower and extra towels and a robe in the cabinet next to the sink. Try not to take too long; my landlady already hates me enough without my water bill going all the way up. Come into the kitchen when you’re done, okay? I’m gonna make us something to eat!” She quickly stepped out of the room and closed the door a little harder than she intended, leaning back against it to catch her breath. The shock of seeing the girl she kind of sort of maybe liked a lot battered and bruised had yet to wear off. After a few moments, she calmed her racing heart and headed to the kitchen to see if Natsu had left any food in her fridge.

Hot water poured from the shower head and over Cana’s hair and shoulders, and she reveled in the warmth. She hadn’t had time to relax in more than a week, much less shower. No more solo missions for a while, she mused. Maybe never again. She flipped open the shampoo bottle and breathed in the faint strawberry scent, her favourite. It totally wasn’t because that’s what Lucy always smelled like. Not at all. Nope.

She showered quickly despite the call of the warm water and wrapped herself in Lucy’s pink robe. The scent of eggs wafted through the door, and she padded into the kitchen just as Lucy was setting two plates on the table. A floorboard squeaked under her foot and the other girl turned to look at her, beaming.

“Just in time! I hope you like eggs. That’s all I seem to have right now.” She wiped her hands on her jeans and sat down.

Cana smirked. “Let me guess, Natsu?”

Lucy groaned. “It’s like he can’t eat anything unless I’m the one who bought it.”

The chair opposite her scraped across the hardwood as Cana pulled it out and sat down. “He’s probably got a black hole where his stomach should be,” she said, stabbing her fork into the eggs.

A laugh tore from Lucy’s mouth. “That wouldn’t even surprise me!” She smiled warmly at Cana and folded a napkin on her lap. “So, tell me about this job you just finished.”

When the two girls were finished eating, Lucy placed their plates in the sink as Cana flopped backwards onto her couch. “Ahh, that was so good!”

“I only made eggs, Cana,” Lucy giggled, sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the couch.

Cana shrugged. “I’ve been living on trail mix and vodka for the last week and a half. Besides, you’re a good cook. Sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?” Lucy’s eyebrow shot up, but her smile remained mirthful.

“Yep.” Cana stretched her arms above her head, revealing a fresh scar on the underside of her arm. She watched Lucy’s lips turn downwards and sadness fill her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Your arm,” tentative fingers reached out and brushed lightly against the scar. “You said you were fine.”

“I am fine. It’s mostly healed, it doesn’t hurt, it wasn’t infected or anything --”

“I was worried about you.” Tears started to pool in Lucy’s eyes. “When you showed up looking half dead, you scared me, Cana. I thought you were hurt. I thought --” she choked on a sob, “I thought I would lose you.”

Cana shifted so she was resting on her elbow and brought her other hand to rest on top of Lucy’s. “Hey,” she whispered, “you’re not gonna lose me, okay? I’m sorry I scared you. I just had a rough week and I didn’t want to be alone anymore, you know?”

Lucy looked into her eyes. “Then why did you choose me? You could’ve gone to anyone else, why me?”

A blush crept up Cana’s cheeks and she looked away, avoiding eye contact. “Because…. I like being with you. I like you.”

“Cana….” Lucy whispered, a blush of her own spreading across her face and chest. “Can…. can I kiss you?”

Cana turned her eyes back to Lucy’s and searched them desperately for any sign of a bad joke, smiling and sighing happily when she found none. She lifted her free hand to Lucy’s cheek and the two leaned closer to each other.

The feeling of Cana’s skin against hers gave Lucy the courage to surge forward and press their lips together. Cana’s lips were soft and smooth, and, despite their recent meal, tasted like sweet champagne. She smelled her own strawberry scent in the girl’s brown hair, and her heart skipped a beat as Cana leaned more into her. Lucy sighed into the kiss, bringing her arms to wrap around Cana’s neck, and Cana hummed happily against her lips.

It might have been hours until the two broke apart, both flushed a deep red, breathing heavily, and smiling dreamily at one another. They stared into each other’s eyes for a few moments before Cana scooted back on the couch and patted the space in front of her. “Get up here,” she purred.

Lucy rolled her eyes and climbed up on the couch, wrapping her arms around Cana as she laid down next to her. She felt Cana press a kiss to her temple, soft and firm. She yawned suddenly, remembering it was around four in the morning, and snuggled against the girl in her arms. “We should…. probably get some sleep,” she said through another yawn.

“Yeah, we should,” Cana said, fighting back a yawn of her own. “We can talk more in the morning.”

“It is morning.”

“Shh. Technicality.”

Natsu sank to his knees on the forest floor, staring in disbelief at the broken body before him. This can’t be real. It can’t be her. It can’t be real…

Her golden hair, stained red with blood, fanned out underneath her like a halo. Both of her legs were bent at an unnatural angle, and her left arm had been torn off at the elbow. A wide gash ran from her right hip up through her stomach. Her brown eyes were wide open, frozen forever in shock and fear. The light pink of her guild emblem stood out against the excess of red, and he gently lifted her hand off of her chest, bringing it to his.

He squeezed her limp fingers, silently begging her to squeeze back but knowing it was a futile hope. His thumb traced the edge of her guild mark, and he thought back to that day he brought her to Fairy Tail, how wide her smile had been when she’d proudly showed him the back of her hand. Now he’d never see that smile again.

Grief overtook him. He screamed up at the sky, feeling his strength and his magic slipping away. As the tears fell down his cheeks, something started to build inside him, like a fire he’d never felt before. A cold fire, feeding on his anguish and taking over his senses. The fire burned him from the inside out, his flesh and bones stinging and aching as his vision blurred. He looked into her eyes one last time before he blacked out.

When he awoke, something was different. His magic had returned, and he felt stronger somehow. There was also a burning desire to test that strength on a large scale, but he pushed the thought out of his mind in favour of starting small. The energy he felt when he made a fireball in his palm was strangely familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. As he looked down at the flame in his hand, he noticed what looked like a large red tattoo on his forearm. The lines curved and intersected to form a scale-like pattern that ran the length of both of his arms. Higher up, the marks grew thicker and were woven together tighter, so tight on his shoulders that it covered all of his skin. In the back of his mind, there was a nagging feeling that these new marks were covering something, but he couldn’t figure out what.

The trees overhead rustled in the wind, letting the moonlight shine through. The light glinted gold on something nearby, catching his attention. A girl lay before him, clearly long dead, and a tiny part of him way deep down screamed in pain. He ignored it, inching closer to the body and lifting her head up. Something about this girl made his urge to destroy grow even stronger. His body seemed to act on its own, scooping her up to hold her bridal style, and he got the feeling that he knew her. Her hand was draped over her chest, and the strange pink symbol on it sent a small wave of deja vu crashing over him. Her wide eyes, hazy and unfocused, stared into his as her head rolled to the side. He almost felt something, but the thought was quickly smothered and he dropped the girl back onto the ground in his confusion at his own feelings, or lack thereof.